RCA Video Monitors: The Future Is Now (1983) 

My family had a 1989 RCA 26” Colortrak wood cabinet CRT as our primary livingroom TV from 1990 all the way to 2007. It was the best TV we ever owned. Gorgeous picture

Wow, huge nostalgia flashback! Funny to think that what we now consider basic functions were once super high end options back in the day. But used to be the only 'input' on a TV were two screws for the antenna :o

I still have a black and white, 1957 19 inch Zenith console tv, has separate Bass and Treble conrtols and a HUGE 16 inch speaker and seriously, one smaller speaker on the left and right side, I LOVE the sound it has! Wood cabinets really make the sound a bit better than plastic:)

I remember back when having a television that had the component connectors on the rear of the set was a really big deal. I also remember in the early 1970's the largest TV you could buy was a 25" console model. I don't think the 27" had been introduced yet but sometime later they began the intro of what they called portable 25" and 27" tv's. The portable model differed from the typical console model, as it had an all plastic outer case and did not contain other media components found in console tv's such as am/fm radio, turntable or 8-track tape player. They were also less costly versus their "console" counterpart because they required fewer internal media components. Man this sure brings back memories!

Despite the fact that this is just sales propaganda it's interesting historically to see where technology was, and what the companies were convinced they could hook the consumers with.

I miss the old RCA. They really were one of the best... back then...

I was just thinking "video monitors, whatever happened to them?" when I realised, I'm streaming this RU-vid video wirelessly to a TV!

When in high school we had the RCA "monitor" pictured at 7:25. It was only 19", but it had all the inputs on the back. The time and channel were displayed on the TV screen. Very cool at the time. It had one of the first integrated remotes that not only controlled the TV, but also an RCA VCR and video disc player. It cost over $600. It needed a repair once which necessitated it be taken to an RCA repair center. But after that repair it went on to work well for over two decades since the TV was new.

2:14 to 2:42 explains how consumers were, apparently, recession proof. The irony is that spending in such a way got us into a recession a few decades later! Love it.

RCA made this video before they came out with the Dimensia system and the Colortrak 2000 monitor. I remember when this was all new and how exciting it all seemed.

It is so funny to watch these infomercials today since they were probably so exciting back then.

I had that very same TV and CED disc player back in the 80's!

RCA was like gold back then until they went overboard on the CED project which is in part what killed them. I have a huge collection of CED videodiscs and quite a few players. The quality isn't bad and I was lucky enough to score a player that came with 3 new needles. Helps with the tracking though a lot discs are just worn so they skip. Most of the discs came from my grandparents who invested in the players and discs early on.

Intro music starting at 10 seconds in sounds like "Too Much Time On My Hands"...

There's this and now we're here with 8k monitors coming out soon

Thank you for uploading this clip.

I still have my RCA Home Theater 55" projection TV. They were extremely popular when my wife bought it for me in 1999. I think in 2000 is when RCA came out with an HD version of the same TV I had but it was really expensive. I only used it for about 6 months but keep it for sentimental reasons. It's a massive TV but when it came out it was the shit. You were the cock of the block if you had one of those but those TVs became obsolete almost overnight.

I laughed every time he said, "The big 25" display".

my grand parents had one of these it lasted forever still worked in the late 90s when they upgraded to a bigger tv set

That was very informative.

The first VCR I bought, a Betamax, was $1,399.99, so a mere $800.00 would have been a steal!

Yes you could, the RCA Dimensia series of Televisions had SCART inputs. I have one at home that does also.

Er..im not sure about that... improvements in video quality required other technologies to get cheaper, namely, computers (DVDs came around because of MPEG-2 compression and more accurate laser assemblies allowing higher data density on a disc) While Laserdiscs had similar quality on CAV discs, keep in mind feature films ended up on 2 double sided laser discs with CAV (30 minutes a side...) which forced you to flip the thing if you didnt have a high end player.. and switch the disc

Ah the days when you had to rent a crane to get your new tv into your house

I think on 4:37. Their is no yellow white and red. Just all of them are greens. Now that's the history of video technology

6:53 slim compact cabinet XD ... yea we have gone long way... now we have 4mm screens >.< (well not really they are expensive as hell)

Virtually resession-proof? 1983? LOL Stock market crash.... Video game crash.... This video is so funny!

@eyeh8nbc We do have 3D tv many times the area of the "big 25 inch". We also have many other advances that were not widely predicted at all. My point is that the advances in 30 years have now become possible in much less time, and that trend (of advancing faster and faster) has continued, and will continue unpredictably. Also...who would want to see Laverne and Shirley standing in their living room? lol

That TV at 1:20 is still cool looking in 2019

Does anyone know what the difference between the Selectavision video monitors and the Colortrak 2000 are? They look identical

The narrator sounds very familiar, the voice behind the Circuit City commercials from the 80's and 90's

The idea of a TV that is not a receiver was way to forward thinking but it eventually came to pass long after CED put the final nail in the coffin for RCA.

This video was mostly meant for video retailers to push RCA's latest goods.

If you listen at the beginning, from :05 - :014, the opening riff is a rip off of the 1981 hit Too Much Time on My Hands by Styx.

@greyeyed123 I think these TVs were about $800. I remember reading a prediction in the 70s saying that someday we'd have holographic TV- "It'll be like Laverne and Shirley standing right there in your living room!" That still hasn't happened.

Look at the playboy magazine lol...

"big 25" screen" WOW....We HAVE gone long way.

4:3 aspect ratio, no wide screen here!

that TV looks a lot better than this weird modern art styles we have now. wood grain or chromed, even then, it's still nicer.

Were these the first monitors/TV sets that had these kind of inputs, or was there another company that beat RCA to it?

Electronics back in 80s were expensive but only obsolescence killed them vs them breaking right when the warranty expires like they do today.

Where did this attitude go? Optimism like this is a sight for sore eyes!

In 1978 a tv color 19 inches, had a price of $ 1.000 in Venezuela, and sony betamax had the same price

7 people don't think the future is now!

OOHHHH I GET IT NOOOOWWW! It's not a television....It's a video....monitor.

06:22 What´s that microcomputer it´s in the desk

holy

TVs should have included A/V in from the beginning.

"The monitors of RCA do it, and then some" :)

That's what the man said. *Snicker*

VCRs was over $800 back then!?!?!?! I feal sorry for RCA. They where one of the best out there. But now, there off brand and there r hard to find tvs.

In 1983 RCA was pretty obsolete. You could get TV's with RGB SCART inputs from like around 1978-1980 instead of the lossy video quality of composite.

DEVO brought me here.

Looks like either a TI 994A or TRS80 Color Computer.

Rca's Dual Dimension Sound.....LOL!! is that a fancier way of saying stereo...LOL!!!

WOW! Another RARE CED ! Where did you find these disc?

also, apple is prooving you don't need to make that much strides for people to buy it anyway

Not in the USA. SCART is a European convention

A 25 inch picture tube, but the set is smaller than a 19 inch set. That was a load of crap.

also, they said the same thing about cell phones in the 70's and 80's "i have no need for a cell phone" "stupid technology" and look what happened...land-line subscriptions are going to the way-side and people are using their primary phone numbers as their cell phones.

"Improvement and innovation" and there's a Mustang II on the screen - LOL!!!!!!!!

Ok, ok, ok. I'll buy one already. How much does it cost? Can you imagine what people will be buying in another 30 years? Good grief. Today technology is advancing in 5 years what it used to take 20 years. By 2042, we will probably have advanced whatever we imagine 100 years of advancement would be from 2012, lol. Flying holodecks to the moon?

2:13: Today's and tomorrow's video consumers have jobs, incomes, and lifestyles that are virtually recession-proof!

I read your comment 5 times. I have no idea what you are saying.

I laugh at their old technology... but if everything disappeared tomorrow, I would not be able to build even the most primitive television.

I can only laugh about this

But your analogy is not apt, as technology is changing at a far more rapid pace than it did over the years leading up to the year 2000. Many science fiction concepts found throughout the 20th century are no longer fiction--they are fact. The tv writer's strike was only 5 years ago, and they argued that "someday" people will watch many of their shows streamed over the internet. It's only 5 years later, and now it feels like we've been doing it forever.

TV shows were a lot better in the 80s. The way TV is now it may not last much longer.

This was a scam. RCA was obsolete even in 1983 as you could get RGB Scart connection on TV's from 1977 (which is a lossless component video signal), and by early 1980 it was standard on TV's.

ironicly, the future of today will be in mobile tech Tablets Smart Phones Touch Screens *vomits*

The future is in monitors? YEAH RIGHT! In 2014, people are using T.V.s to hook their computers up to!

The 19 inch models in the 90's had a dull shitty color quality. RCA sucks ass!

"And that's because today's and tomorrows video consumers have jobs, incomes and lifestyles that are virtually recession proof." Yeah right motherfuckers, welcome to 2012, where movies, music and video game sales are on the decline and people are buying gaming PC's where they are just downloading games to save cash.

.......rich people? uhhhhh....i make less than 10,000/year and i bought my Galaxy Nexus full price it's called SAVINGS ACCOUNT.

cheap version of Sony´s profeel